More Worries

Shortly before Thanksgiving of last year, we noticed an itchy skin problem on Sassy, one of our more skittish  ferals.  Because she is still pretty wild, I knew getting her in to see the vet would be difficult and expensive.  As I watched her, I made a home diagnosis, based on a past experience with Monroe.  He had developed an itch, and had begun to lose hair on areas of his face.  Since he's friendly and cooperative, we were able to take him to the vet for a proper diagnosis.  It was ringworm, which we successfully treated with liquid oral medication, mixed by our local apothecary. The patches on Sassy's skin looked, to me, exactly like the ones on Monroe.  I called Dr House, and explained what was going on with Sassy, and let him know she was wild. Knowing that I could never give her liquid medicine, I asked if that same medicine was available in pill form (Sassy will not let me hold her or pet her, but she will take a piece of lunch meat from my hand). Dr House looked into it, and found that the pill form is very expensive, so he had the apothecary make some capsules for us.  I've been giving her these capsules, wrapped in lunch meat, for the past 30 days or so.  She had stopped scratching her face, reducing the amount of crusty skin areas on her face.  I was delighted, thinking that I'd made the correct diagnosis, and she was going to feel better.  This past week, I noticed she was scratching again, and by Saturday, she had another scab on her face.  Her medicine is gone, and we don't want to buy more unless we're sure the problem is, indeed, ringworm.  That means a vet visit.
So tomorrow, we're going to call Dr House's office to see if he has time to deal with a completely uncooperative feral cat.  THEN, we have to see if we can catch her.  He's probably going to have to sedate her to examine her which is an added expense, and a health concern for a cat her age.  I really need your prayers.  Because of all the recent losses among my feral cats, I'm very nervous and scared.  I hope and pray that this is just a case of ringworm, as I originally suspected, or something equally treatable.  I don't want to lose another cat.  She may not be very cuddly and friendly, but she's part of my family just as much as the friendly ones.  I love her very much.